war? two rival primeinisters. elections are delayed and peace talks have made little progress. so what is next? this is inside story. hashem: hello, will come the program. people in libya are voicing fears of a return to civil war. two rival governments signed a cease-fire last year to end years of fighting following the fall of muammar gaddafi in 2011. they were supposed to work

together and hold elections but that has not happened. street battles have killed at least one person. reporter: a takeover attempt at the crack of dawn. the prime minister of the rival parliament in the eastern city trying to enter libya's capital on tuesday morning. but most just roiled to the government in tripoli open fire on his convoy. hours of battle forced fathi bashagha to retreat. bashagha says he does not regret the takeover attempt same leaders in tripoli are refusing to give up power. >> back of my has worked to

underlay -- delay the government. we followed a political process. reporter: his rifle abdulhamid al-dbeibah accused him of an attempted coup. >> in the eyes of the libyans that i saw today, there was a fear, but there was hope and challenge. there is to go back to the past. to war and to chaos and to destruction. reporter: libya has been split between rival powers since muammar gaddafi was overthrown and killed 11 years ago. after years of fighting, you went peace talks led to a cease-fire in march of last year. the opposing sides came together

. elections worse -- were postponed because of disagreements among candidates. two months later, the tobruk base parliament chose bashagha as prime minister. >> the only solution for this conflict is holding elections. >> those who are fighting for power cannot go fight in the desert and we will welcome whoever comes back victorious. reporter: france has urged both sides to respect the cease-fire. but until both sides agree to a pep forward, many libyans fear more conflict to come. hashem: let's bring in our guests.

salah elbakkoush, political analyst. silvia colombo, associate fellow at international affairs institute in italy . mustafa fetouri, journalist and contributor for middle east monitor. welcome to the program. let's try to understand exactly what happened in tripoli. this is the prime minister that was appointed by the tobruk based parliament. on his way to the capital to take over from the tripoli backed abdulhamid al-dbeibah. suddenly street battles erupted. who is to blame here? salah: bashagha tried several times to install himself and failed. this time he tried to enter tripoli at 3:00 in the morning, went to a house belonging to an

armed group and he was cornered there. at 5:00 in the morning negotiations started with the dbeibah government they gave him a safe passage out of the city. at some 30 in the morning, -- at 730 in the morning, they accompanied bashagha south of tripoli where he was handed over to a military unit. the thing and did break there after some clashes -- the thing ended there after some clashes. hashem: this does not seem like

an isolated incident. it seems like a deeper political death by that has never been solved. silvia: yes, indeed. we have seen over the past nine months or so of growth in tensions within libya. it is a part of an attempt by political forces to keep the conflict frozen in order to continue to benefit from the situation of uncertainty. this has played out meaningfully in 2021 and they need to undertake elections was confronted.

to start revising the constitution. all of these discussions and the blockade being put to the electoral roadmap has been a way to boycott and delay a process that was very fragile from the very beginning and it could have brought libya to the next stage. now we are in frozen in the situation and we are at the beginning of the transition and a lot of uncertainty exists. a lot of efforts that have been made in the past since the cease-fire was reached in late october 2020 has been wasted. hashem: in 2021 thank united nations let a political process to put an end and stability in the country.

that process led the way for abdulhamid al-dbeibah to take over as prime minister. was this a legal decision by the parliament based in tobruk? mustafa: thank you for having me. if you consider the vote of confidence less march -- last march, if you consider that parliament be legally in power and this mandate has not expired, which is of course not true, then you have to accept

that it is the same parliament that came back and voted mr. bashagha in. you have to remember the fact that the same parliament stripped mr. dbeibah. he became a care character -- caretaker. the legality issue here actually touches everybody, whether you say if the parliament is not legal, then it is not legal across the board. that means bringing in a vote of confidence as i mentioned. then it is legal as well. you cannot really say it is a democratic legal process when

you get the vote of confidence and then when you lose it you say it is a fraud. hashem: you have three institutions here. you have the parliament in tobruk. the three institutions created problems for the international community. people are trying to understand why it is happening. what is happening as we speak? salah: the tobruk based parliament is saying bashagha has to take over. people in tripoli are saying no. he is not going to hand over power until there was a new legislature put into place. we have two different narratives

here. we have two different world views here. mustafa: what he said is not very precise. parliament gave the paper government the vote of confidence, but he told you correctly that the government was not chosen by the parliament . it was chosen by the libyan political dialogue forum in geneva. you can take that the vote of confidence which you give the government by acclamation, but you cannot install a new government. that is the business of the lpdf.

they lost in joey votto and that is why he came to power. -- they lost in geneva and that is why dbeibah came to power. it extends 18 months provided elections are held on the 24th of december 2021. hashem: which did not happen. mustafa: which did not happen. that is why he is saying he won't hand over power to an elected government. but thing we have to understand is that neither dbeibah or bashagha are the important thing here. the important thing is we need election so that we can get rid of the high council of state and

the parliament which have been in power for 10 years. keeping dbeibah is the only leverage we have to force these two bodies to give up power and have elections that 2.8 one million people demand. hashem: it seems like there was absolutely no way to have elections in libya once you bridge the divide between the east and the west, which has been the main reason we are having these problems. i would like to ask you do you think this is the ultimate problem of the international community, of the united nations in particular. silvia: there are a few points here. we know by the experience of

other countries that elections are by nature divisive. in a country such as libya, it is difficult to use elections as a building tool. this is not going to work. but at the same time, we cannot get to a new stage, we cannot overcome the current drug block -- brad locke if we do not address the immediate problems. there are security issues and economic issues that people care much more about. i think the failure of the q1 -- united nations is due to many factors.

it is due to the fact that they've united nations, the roadmap and the way it has been managed has decreased the legitimacy in the eyes of the libyan people. we do not know exactly what will happen. just now, western external players are starting to realize that if this mandate is not renewed, we will lose, but international community will lose in terms of being able to influence her support the libby entrance, whatever form it takes. -- the libyan transition, whatever forms it takes. hashem: the tripoli based

government has always been skeptical of any attempt by the tobruk based parliament to move forward. they say they are being manipulated to orchestrate a coup to undermine the people in the west. mustafa: i do not relate expect much politically speaking from him at the moment. everybody is likely to wait for their position until after mid june as the roadmap brokered last year comes to an end, which

meets the government of mr. dbeibah will also come to an end. that is the big question. what will happen then? what has been happening in libya since 2011, since the foreign military defection, the lack of contingency plans, by which i mean if your plan a fails, do you have plan b and how to implement that plan? that has not happened because what happened in 2011 was libyans were promised democracy and economic growth. the following day, muammar gaddafi and his government are gone. there was no plan b.

the same thing happened here. dbeibah bribed his way into the role of prime minister without the proper investigation from the united nations at the time. that was in november -- i mean in tunisia. hashem: when you look at the situation now, it created some sort of regional realignment. as the political landscape still the same? salah: definitely as far as we

are concerned it is no longer providing the support after as before. it has been reduced tremendously if not stopped altogether. they seem to be comfortable with him. the egyptians do not want to elections because elections mean infinitely that he will not be back as the head of the parliament. and after will be under great pressure because he has always claimed that he will only submit to an elected government in libya and they know a new elected government in libya may

not guarantee the survival of him. also, notice that they were the ones that opposed the government of national let cord since the beginning -- national accord since the beginning. after an agreement with the parliament and the high council of state in geneva, declared three months after the government got its mandate from the parliament that he does not recognize this government and band him from entering based on the south.

that is my stephanie williams in her opening speech in cairo's and tried everything. we tried transitional government. we tried power-sharing agreement. we have to go to elections because all other solutions do not work. hashem: she also said we need consensus. do you think with the cairo talks that could be an opportunity about how to move forward? silvia: the cairo talks have been crafted in a way to go in parallel to the process that started in berlin in january 2020. i do not see what the cairo talks should succeed in bringing

them to common terms. i do not really trust these talks to have to have any meaningful results. i do not think it is going to solve anything. this is an example that regional players are back in the field and controlling the process because of international community is large. hashem: this must be up delicate moment for the libyan people. they are looking at the politicians just lived -- jostling for power and that this can be conducive to civil war

once again in the country. salah: however unlikely, the possibility for another civil is always there. the risk has increased since the representative broke the cease-fire in 2020. it has already suspended its participation, the whole group, the five of them. not just that, they recommended to suspend, consider the cease-fire suspended and even asked them to take certain measures to make sure that it is not in place anymore. of course, as usual, they accuse the other side of violating the terms of the cease-fire.

they are partly right in this accusation because when bashagha was voted in, they took certain measures that violated the cease-fire. hashem: i see your point. thank you. thank you very much indeed. i really appreciate your insight. and thank you too for watching. you can see the program any time by visiting our website. you can also join the conversation on twitter. from the entire team, goodbye.

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